I don’t think I could cry over *Unbreak My Heart * after that stupid commercial for Citicard or whatever the fuck it is.
Bonnie Raitt’s version of *Love Has No Pride * kills me every time, too.
Sorry, forgot the Lord of the Rings soundtrack:
‘In dreams’ by Edward Ross
‘Into the West’ by Annie Lennox*
*on the extended edition, Jackson says “we had the song and needed to have an truly exceptional singer. We looked at each other and went … Annie Lennox.”
“I Will Remember You” by Amy Grant makes me weepy as well.
The beautiful thing about those murky early R.E.M. songs is that there’s no right answer to the question “What does it mean?” 
I came in here to mention “Sweetness Follows.” I can’t get through it, ever.
Also, “Kissing You” by Des’Ree. My husband played it for me in the car right after I agreed to marry him.
I’m sure there are more; I get emotional really easily. :o
Well, heck, if we’re getting highbrow here… 
I’ll see you that one (and I definitely concur with your opinion of the work although I only knew of the Upshaw recording), and I’ll raise you a “Beim Schlafengehen” by Richard Strauss. This recording with Gundula Janowicz is my favorite. If anyone has seen the film “The Year of Living Dangerously”, this is the piece that Billy Kwan plays for Guy Hamilton, although that one was recorded by Kiri Te Kanawa.
Heh, I haven’t seen that. Its not so much the song itself but the time in my life that I was listening to it. If not for those associations I doubt any of the songs I mentioned would really get to me.
All Things Must Pass, as performed by Eric Clapton and many of George’s other friends at the Concert For George. Hearing Mr. Harrison’s words sung as if written to give comfort to those very friends (and we fans) after his death, it just tears me up.
John Fogerty’s I Will Walk With You is tough for me. I sang it for my daughter at her graduation party, when she finished college and went off to start a (fabulous) career in a far-away city. The lyrics said what I wanted to say to her (particularly “I’ll never be far from you/this I promise you”), and I can’t hear it without feeling it very strongly. (I couldn’t look at her when I was singing it, or I’d have broken apart completely and made a fool of myself. As it was, I had to choke out some of the lines.)
Paul McCartney’s Here Today (a song he wrote to John after John’s death) gets to me. “Never understood a thing/But we could always sing” . . . Yeah. They certainly could always sing. And the final verse, about John actually still being “here today” because he’s in the songs. Definite goosebump and lump-in-the-throat material.
Others have mentioned Don McLean’s Vincent, and I agree, but his Crossroads is beautifully painful as well as painfully beautiful.
The Allman Brothers In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed (written by Dickie Betts) takes me into a pretty deep emotional place, without even knowing the name of the person it was really written for. I guess hearing Duane playing something that mournful and sad and haunting, and knowing he’s gone, just kicks my pedals.
I also agree with others about Warren Zevon, both Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door and Keep Me In Your Heart. How he managed to get through the recording sessions for those, under the circumstances, I can’t imagine.
Not quite in the “breaking into tears” category, but I get major frissons, chills and hair-standing-on-end whenever I hear Rhapsody In Blue, played by Gershwin himself (as released on the CBS recording of the 1925 piano roll, re-recorded from the piano roll on a modern reproducing Steinway, with a small jazz band, as originally intended). Gershwin playing his own music, on a modern instrument, recorded in full stereo with modern studio equipment. Oh my!
And the Ninth Symphony, fourth movement, hits me pretty hard. (Actually, the second movement as well.)
Warning: I can be really sentimental over dumb, sappy things.
Be Human, from Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Original Soundtrack-Be Human, vocals: Scott Matthew, composed by: Yoko Kanno, lyrics by: Troy. It’s this soft, dream-like piece with lyrics written from the perspective of the Tachikomas (sentient, child-like and insatiably curious Artificial Intelligences from the series), wondering about what it would be like to be human. The lyrics are beautifully poetic, and encompass the entirety of human experience, but what really gets me is…
the song ends wondering what death will bring for the singer, which always brings to mind the fact the tachikomas sacrificed themselves to stop a nuclear missile at the end of the second seasos.
…chokes me up every time.
Also from Yoko Kanno is The Story of Escaflowne from Escaflowne Lovers Only, an amazing orchestral piece shown during the endng credits/epilogue to the phenomenal series. Again, while a wonderful, whistful, piece in it’s own right, the reason it gets me is the memories of the tv series it brings up.
One last Japanese composer: FINAL FANTASY by Nobuo Uematsu. Pretty much any of the renditions in Final Fantasies I-IX, or even the version in the ending credits of the CG-movie, FFVII: Advent Children, but mostly the one in IX. I spent a very large amount of my youth following this series as a dedicated fan, and back when I first beat IX, and heard this, knowing at the time that it was planned to be the last “traditional” FF, and that Uematsu was only scoring part of X as he left Square to work free-lance, well, it came to symbolize the end of an era for me. The timing even coincided with the middle years of Highschool for me (IIRC), to give you an idea of what I mean. Anyway, everytime I hear it I get a little misty. This is the piece often called “prologue” (not to be confused with the harp piece, Prelude) that was in every FF for the longest time (plays during the opening credits of FFI, FFIII, and FFIV, btw). Hell, the song that it shares a track with on the FFIX soundtrack, Melodies of Life only really gets me because I know FINAL FANTASY is coming when I hear it.
Heh, I’m such a nerd.
The Beatles’, Long and Winding Road. Can’t even think about it without getting teary, like right now. I had heard it plenty with no reaction until one day I was listening to it in my car, and thought, “Wow, this is one sad song.”
Strangly enough, it was the number one song in the U.S. and the U.K. on the day I was born.
Also, The Rainbow Connection chokes me up for some reason.
I hear ya. It can be a silly song, but if I have a heartfelt attachment, I can blubber like a little baby.
(The commercial is where they have one person with another person’s voice over it talking about credit theft. This one features a gigantic black guy singing in a Britney Spears-like voice.)
Ack! I do remember that commercial. I must have been blocking my memory of it.
Shriekback’s “Cradle Song” - it’s not even sad, just an slow, gentle, achingly beautiful little lullaby that Barry Andrews wrote for his baby son:
I remember your face
as you cried for the first time
The cold air of the world and the fierce
light of day and the cruel separation
In a world washed with tears
numbed with pain to unfeeling
May you hold to your truth
as you walk the dark night of unreason
The stone walls which surround us
may your spirit fly round them
Like the wind from the sea…
I could quote more, but copyright aside, just typing it makes the hairs stand up on my arms. Gets me every time because it’s all true - that’s just how fathers feel in the delivery room. Aw, heck, one more line:
I can feel your life burning
unlived moments within you
Ack! I hate to be a noodge, but I can’t believe I forgot!
Arcadia, another Yoko Kanno composition, performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic (I think; it’s a Polish orchestra, at any rate) also from the Anime series Escaflowne. An incredibly tragic piece featuring traditional opera elements (as is typical of much of Escaflowne’s more iconic tracks). Also a powerful, moving piece, with added punch for anyone who has watched the series.
Where Have You Been? by Kathy Mattea.
Speaking of R.E.M., I will also toss in “Nightswimming”.
“Tears of Heaven” moves me because I’m a parent and cannot begin to comprehend the grief that Clapton must have felt when he was writing that song.
“I Can’t Make You Love Me,” a song about unrequited love by Bonnie Raitt never fails to move me to tears. I know that you’re going to leave me but just hold me these final hours. Holy crap.
And finally, “Veni, Veni” by Mannheim Steamroller makes me want to weep in its simplistic melancholy beauty. This is one song where Mannheim departs from its synthetic sound and I think the arrangement is hauntingly beautiful.
“On Eagle’s Wings” and “Be Not Afraid” are two church songs that can move me to tears. Perhaps because they’re usually played at funerals…
OMG, I forgot about this song. I heard it for the first time when I was coming to realize that the guy I’d been with for 4 years really didn’t love me. 
And “I Will Remember You” by Amy Grant. Same situation, same guy, after the breakup.
I have the world’s corniest taste in music.
:eek: Holy snikey! I came in here to mention those** exact two ** because they were played at my best childhood friend’s funeral. I was just thinking how I couldn’t make it through them in church. We were around 19 or so when he died but the funeral was in the church we grew up in, and attended as Catholic school kids together. RIP, buddy.
The other verses that choke me up are Amazing Grace: “When we’ve been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun…”
and How Great Thou Art: “When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation, and take me home, …”